(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a robot used for carrying out a work (cooperative work) between a person and the robot in cooperation with each other, a controlling device and a controlling method for such a robot, as well as to a controlling program for the robot-controlling device.
(2) Description of Related Art
In recent years, house-service robots, such as nursing robots and house-keeping support robots, have been vigorously developed. Moreover, in the industrial robots also, different from those conventional robots isolated from people, those which carry out a cooperative work with a person have increased in number. Since those robots carry out works near people, physical contact with a person is inevitably required. For this reason, from the viewpoint of safety, those robots need to be mechanically flexible, and to move in a flexible manner.
As one example of a robot device, a device has been proposed in which a person and a robot arm transport an object in cooperation with each other. Among such devices, a technique has been proposed in which the rotating movement of a hand that is located at an end of the robot arm is controlled so that the rotating force of the hand corresponding to the end of the robot arm is set to zero, while the translation movement in a vertical direction of the hand is controlled so that the object is maintained in its horizontal state (see Patent Document 1).
By using the technique of Patent Document 1, even in a case where the mass of an object is unknown or changed on the way, which causes problems conventionally, a cooperative transporting operation can be achieved.    Patent Document 1: JP-A No. 2000-343470